9 hours Ago By Emily Baker
Tell me what you want. What you really, really want. Is it a Spice Girls reunion? If so, you’re in luck.
The Sun is reporting that the 90s pop group are secretly planning to reunite for a new world tour next year in celebration of their 30th anniversary. According to an unidentified source, Geri Halliwell is back in touch with the band’s manager, Simon Fuller, and the pair are cooking up some exciting ideas. Moreover, the Girls are apparently meeting in Miami next week to discuss tour plans.
As a diehard Spice Girls fan, this is news that should send me dizzy with excitement. I should be setting up a pre-emptive WhatsApp group with my mates to co-ordinate tickets and 90s inspired outfits. I should be digging through my loft, wondering where on Earth my hair crimpers had got to.
But hearing that the girl band who soundtracked my youth were once again reuniting only initiated one reaction: a disgruntled shrug. Rumours of a reunion are nothing new – no one understands the phrase “hope breeds eternal misery” better than a Spice Girls fan. The tittle-tattle has only come to fruition three times since the band broke up in 2001.
The first reunion tour in 2007 – cleverly titled “The Return of the Spice Girls” – was a genuine cultural event. It marked the return of Halliwell, who had left the Spice Girls 11 years earlier, and the five-piece sold out an impressive 17-night residency at London’s O2. I was at the Manchester show, sat in the Gods, crying my eyes out at the sight of my childhood idols.
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addToArray({"pos": "inread-hb-ros-inews"}); }Victoria Beckham didn’t join her bandmates for their 2019 tour (Photo: Andrew Timms/PA Wire)The next time Spice Girls were wheeled out – literally – was at the 2012 London Olympics Closing Ceremony. The appearance cemented the band’s place as British icons, as they stood atop a convoy of five black cabs, and performed alongside the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen and The Who. It would be another seven years before they went out on another tour – this time, without Posh Spice, Victoria Beckham.
It was a fine tour, enjoyable even, but there was something missing. The spark of seeing something rare had dissipated – it wasn’t special. #color-context-related-article-3652972 {--inews-color-primary: #EDA400;--inews-color-secondary: #FDF6E5;--inews-color-tertiary: #EDA400;} Read Next square BOOKS How do you raise a superstar? Tina Knowles's memoir tells usRead MoreThe same can be said for this new tour.
It’s only been five years since the Girls last got back together and – according to the Sun’s source – Victoria Beckham is “ninety per cent out of the running”. What makes this any different to the last time around? Can we even call it another “reunion”? Since leaving the band, Posh has leaned into her Spice-y nickname and become a fashion industry superstar. She is an A-lister, completely inaccessible to the general public, appearing only in slick Netflix documentaries about her husband’s career.
Her bandmates, however, are much more available: Mel B is a regular on my TV, most recently appearing in Bear Grylls’s survival competition and The Masked Singer in France; I can text Emma Bunton on Sunday nights when she presents her Heart radio show. Access to something hard to get elsewhere is the key to a successful tour – and the Spice Girls (with the exception of Beckham) are simply too overexposed. It’s not exciting to see someone on tour if you can see them on TV every other day – to put it in Spice Girls parlance, it’s Too Much.
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addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l1"}); }The Spice Girls’ performance at the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony was a pop cultural moment (Photo: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images)Take Oasis, who will be performing their first shows with both Gallagher brothers in the band for the first time in 16 years. Tickets are like gold dust and the band are predicted to make an eye-watering £50 million each (the Spice Girls’ 2019 tour earned them £12 million each). Of course, Oasis has a volatility factor that makes seeing their show more intriguing – but I’d bet lots of people would be just as interested in seeing how an uber-poised Posh would handle being part of an all-singing, all-dancing show.
In theory, I’m all up for a Spice Girls world tour...
in a few more years’ time and with Easy V fully signed up. Concerts are growing more and more expensive, and music fans are having to be more selective about who they give their money to. I’m afraid that if the Spice Girls wannabe in my pockets, they’ve gotta give me a better reason than a convenient 30th anniversary.
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